About Encoded Designs

Encoded Designs is a publisher and game design house specializing in tabletop role-playing games and board games. The partners are able to provide writing, editing, graphic design, and art direction both in-house and for other game companies. Our process focuses on collaboration, playability, and quality. We bring decades of Game Mastering and years of RPG Industry experience together in all of our creations.

Meet The Encoded Team

Encoded Designs is made up of hard-working, passionate people who have gaming encoded in their DNA. We make games because we love games, and each member of the Encoded Designs team brings a unique perspective and talent to our design and development process.

Phil Vecchione

Founder of Encoded Designs

Game Designer, Project Manager, Writer, Podcaster, and Blogger — As a man of many hats, Phil has been working in the roleplaying game industry since 2009 working with Engine Publishing, Evil Beagle Games, Third Eye Games, and Pelgrane Games. His work has won or been nominated for a number of awards, including the ENnie, Golden Geek, and Origins Award. Phil is also a trained Project Manager and applies his mad Gantt Charting skills to all of Encoded’s work.

Chris Sniezak

Lead Designer and Developer

Since 2011, Chris has written and designed for games like Fate (Part-Time Gods of Fate), Gumshoe (Dracula Dossier), Numenera (Tales from the Mechanical Bard), and D&D (Living Forgotten Realms, Book of the Tarrasque, D&D CCC adventures, D&D AL). As a podcaster, he’s been the host, producer, and audio engineer of The Misdirected Mark Podcast, Down with D&D, Hobbs & Friends of the OSR, The Gnomecast, and a variety of other shows. In his spare time he loves learning more about the art of storytelling by listening to audiobooks and podcasts, watching TV, reading, and attending plays and musicals. He also enjoys playing board games, and listening to or playing Jazz.

Shawn Merwin

Lead Editor and Developer

Shawn's professional design and editing work in the roleplaying game industry has spanned 15 years and over 2 million words of content. His Dungeons & Dragons work has ranged from 3rd to 5th edition, showing up in sourcebooks, adventures, articles, and Organized Play administration. He has been a driving force in several Organized Play programs, and has written material for Goodman Games, Mongoose Publishing, and Kenzer & Co., amongst others.

Bob Everson

Editor, Proofreader, and Developer

Bob Everson is a proofreader and editor for the ENnie Award winning blog Gnome Stew, and has worked previously on books for Engine Publishing, Arc Dream Publishing, and Headless Hydra Games. He has been gaming for more than 30 years, and has also designed his own games with the goal of one day publishing one of his designs. When he's not gaming he reads voraciously, and also writes short fiction which he also dreams of publishing one day. His superpower is coming up with book titles.

Tim Jones

Graphic Designer and Developer

Tim’s interest in tabletop gaming was nurtured while growing up in the early 90s. He experienced how those games could simplify interactions while teasing the imagination (and ego) in ways almost nothing else could. His “first love” in gaming came from the video arcades and computer games that sparked an appreciation of graphical technique and design. This gave Tim a sense of the incredible power that visuals have to influence narrative. Tim applies this philosophy to his work in graphic design and typography.

John Arcadian

Art Director and Developer

John got his start with gaming back in the heyday of 2nd Edition D&D. Soon after discovering the wider world of role-playing, he couldn’t wait to get into the GM’s seat, and from there he fell down the rabbit-hole of freelancing and writing. John has worked for many industry titans over the years doing writing, art direction, or web design. Amongst his current and previous employers are such names as Monte Cook Games, Kobold Press, Engine Publishing, Cubicle 7, Reality Blurs, Silvervine Games, and others.